


The Gyre

by write_light



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Druids, Gun Violence, M/M, Major Character Injury, Teen Wolf Reverse Bang, Werewolf Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3993625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_light/pseuds/write_light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU; With the destruction of Beacon Hills's supernatural world just minutes away, a desperate decision sends Stiles and Derek where no one can find them. It might just save the world, if it doesn't kill them first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gyre

**Author's Note:**

> A ~~sidebar~~ big fat tease for a larger fic I'm working on. Druidic powers are complex, but the guidelines are simple – keep the world in balance. "At any cost," well, that's how Morrell sees it. Hints of magical!Stiles, Sterek-to-come, and time travel. Written for Full Moon Ficlet's prompt, "Regress". Also HERE: [FMF](http://fullmoon-ficlet.livejournal.com/317074.html) || [LJ](http://write-light.livejournal.com/568202.html) || [DW](http://write-light.dreamwidth.org/499435.html)

The attacks were in the news more often that week, and it made Stiles nervous, more nervous than Agent McCall in his house nearly every day now. His father kept the TV off the news channels, but the reports from local cops on up to the FBI flooded his desk at work.

"There's not one BOLO – there's no one to be on the lookout for, not a single lead?" the Sheriff asked pointedly in McCall's direction.

"The one in the south, in Shreveport, they're calling that suicide still?" Stiles interrupted.

"Son-"

"And the one in Colorado Springs, and the one in Mexico?"

Agent McCall's head snapped up at that one.

"How did you hear about-"

"I heard!"

"They killed a gang," McCall said to the Sheriff. "The Calaveras."

The Sheriff looked at Stiles, knowing full well what that meant, but Stiles was over the edge now and about to say something stupid.

"Hear that, Dad? The Calaveras."

"Who-?" he tried to feign ignorance, and was spared by Stiles being even stupider.

"They're closer every day. And in every town, the law enforcement was killed."

McCall grabbed Stiles hard by the arm. "You can't know that."

"What?" asked the Sheriff, his anger directed at McCall for the moment.

McCall and Stiles stared each other down until McCall couldn't take it and let go.

" _Never touch my son like that again_."

"He-"

"Talk!" the Sheriff demanded.

Stiles' nodded each time Agent McCall told the truth, a silent fact-checker for every death listed. In every town, the top cop died, and then an entire family. Stiles was itching to tell his father who else was really dying.

_WOLVES, DAD, all of them. Every time. Someone is killing the great werewolf families and they're headed this way._

Stiles was biting his lip hard not to scream this out, but his father could feel the pressure building, could see his son's fuse burning down fast.

***

_A week later_

"Derek!"

"Keep up."

"You're not going in the right direction," Stiles yelled, trying not to sound out of breath as he dashed through the woods.

"It's up ahead-" Derek said and then silence. Stiles heard him stop.

"The moon's different," Derek said, sounding uncertain.

"Yeah, it's straight ahead now."

"I – it felt like this was the right way," Derek mumbled and shook his head to clear it.

"Are you lost?" Stiles asked in disbelief. "We don't have time to be lost – my Dad's life depends on this."

"Something's … out here."

Derek ran off the path, leaving Stiles alone with whatever was out there.

"What do you mean?" he whispered loudly.

No reply.

"Derek!" he whispered again.

"Stiles, come here." His voice was off.

Stiles caught up to him at a clearing, and stood facing Derek, who was looking down at the ground.

"Do you see it?"

In the moonlight, he could barely make out the line, like a rope on the ground.

"Is that a snake?" he yelled, jumping back in a flail of arms and legs.

"No, you idiot, it's a line of mountain ash."

"No one puts lines of mountain ash through the woods. Who would do that? Hunters?"

"Come on," Derek said softly and ran ahead, along the line. Stiles raised his hands in exasperation, but took off after Derek the moment he vanished into the depths of shadow under the trees.

He collided with Derek's back in a few minutes, and felt Derek's arms reaching back to keep him there, keep him safe. They were in the last place Stiles ever wanted to find himself again - the wide, flat stump of a once great tree, the source of so many troubles in Beacon Hills. Derek backed up against him and held him close.

"The line spirals in to the Nemeton," Derek whispered back over his shoulder.

"Someone led us here?" Stiles whispered into Derek's ear, trying to ignore the warmth he felt from the arms around him, and the care, if Derek could care. It felt like care.

"One ring of mountain ash, spiraling inward to the center," came a voice from the darkness on the other side.

"I know that voice," Stiles whispered.

"We had to be sure you both got here."

Stiles' mind said "Ms. Morrell" just as she stepped forward. There were footsteps behind them now as well - Derek moved around Stiles until their backs were together. Stiles could hear the claws come out.

Behind them, more people emerged from the darkness in an arc around them and directly in front of them was Dr. Deaton.

Derek backed toward the Nemeton, limited by the tight curve of the ash line, pushing Stiles with him.

"Doc!" Stiles said over Derek's shoulder, smiling, but Deaton was unmoved, his face frozen. Deaton watched his sister on the opposite side, judging her mood and her next move.

Stiles and Derek were stuck in the center of a shrinking circle, and the men and women around them in the moonlight moved slowly, arms out wide like they were trying to round up two lost sheep.

From the distance came the sound of a truck racing through the forest, and soon, two crazy headlights could be seen, sweeping wildly up and down, left and right, ever closer.

"Close the circle, we have no time!" Morrell shouted, and the others joined hands. "Closer!" she said to Derek and Stiles, who were now warily atop the Nemeton.

The truck skidded to a halt and a man jumped out, holding the Sheriff in a chokehold with a gun to his head.

"Dad!" Stiles said, lunging forward, but Derek grabbed him with both hands and pulled him back.

"Don't put him in more danger," Derek said softly.

"End this now!" yelled the man holding the Sheriff. "We have no quarrel with druids who help us."

Morell joined her hands with the others around her and closed the circle. The Nemeton trembled, and Stiles stumbled free of Derek, his hands hitting the stump as he fell. Light flared up from the cracks, igniting the mountain ash. A glow raced out along the spiral, circling the ring of druids and moving out into the forest, around and around in an ever-widening arc. The spiral glowed red as the pulse of light sped outward, gathering energy like a clock being wound up.

"Stiles, stop them," Morell said to him in a clear, strangely calm voice. "You have it in you. You can save your father and Scott, and Derek and all of his kind, if you can _stop them_. Listen to me!"

Derek watched the spiral as it grew wider around them, pulling Stiles back against him, but Stiles could only see his father being pushed to the ground, and he struggled against Derek's arms. The man standing over his father aimed the gun.

"Dad!!"

He fired into the sheriff, whose body shook and swung forward, falling. The pulse of light reached its farthest point as the shot rang out, then returned faster than before, spiraling inward, picking the wind up with it.

Deaton wanted to rush to help the Sheriff, but the circle on either side held fast to him, and the magic held tighter.

"DAD!!!" Stiles screamed, and broke from Derek's grip for a second.

The Sheriff crawled forward, toward the Nemeton, toward his son, and Stiles reached the edge before Derek grabbed him again.

"Stay here. Something bad is about to happen."

"Something bad just happened!" Stiles turned on him in confusion, fighting to get free with every ounce of strength as tears filled his eyes.

The sheriff collapsed onto the roots and bled freely across them.

"You knew this would happen?!" Deaton yelled over the rising wind.

"All can be restored," Morrell called back.

The light raced along the glowing spiral, lighting up the forest as it sped back in toward them, wrapping one last time around the Nemeton stump, racing through the circle of hands.

Stiles tore free of Derek to get to his father, but too late. Derek grabbed for his wrist but Stiles pulled free again.

What happened next was different, depending on where you stood.

The Sheriff saw only light above him, a tunnel of light and in it, his son, shrinking into the distance.

A maelstrom descended on the Nemeton, a swirling tornado of light and fire and energy that pulled the druid circle to their knees and vanished in a final flash. The woods caught their breath, dark and utterly silent for the moment.

When he could breathe again, Deaton looked over at Morrell.

"What have you done?" he gasped.

"Regression to the mean – isn't that what you call it, brother? I call it balancing things out. Nothing too hard, nothing too easy."

"They weren't ready!"

"They'll figure it out. Derek has Hale blood - you of all people should know what that means."

"And Stiles?"

"He did very well on all his college placement tests."

"He won't survive this."

"He has it in him. They have all they need to tip the scales back. They have each other."

***

 _1864_ – light, so bright, then twilight, a flickering blur all around

 _1863_ – night, then day, then night again, the sun a dim line from horizon to horizon

***

_1862 – an Eastern Tennessee hillside_

From Derek's point of view, Stiles left him to fall.

When he woke, it was to a stinging smell of blood, damp needles, decay, heat, and more blood.

It was in his nose and mouth, the taste of it - blood drying on heavy wool, blood seeping into dust, blood cooled from the heat of bodies and warmed again by the summer sun.

And death. There was nothing alive but the animals tearing at the bodies. All of that seemed far off, and he was in deepest shade, his face pressed against something cold and hard.

Derek didn't want to open his eyes – his nose had warned him well enough. But he needed to find Stiles.

He opened one eye slowly, and saw the root of a vast and spreading tree; around him in every direction were the dead, ripped to pieces, sometimes just uniforms left, a few bodies more or less intact, three or four days gone at most.

And he was naked.

And there was no Stiles.

***

_1862 – the hills west of Leesburg, Virginia_

Stiles had felt Derek tugging on him, even as the world bent around him and his father vanished. He turned to push back at Derek but the tug only grew stronger, spinning him into a center that never seemed to end.

When he came to, he had trouble focusing on anything. A line of small glowing stars moved up and down a white surface. Something intruded, a pain in his side, and a coldness was spreading all down his back. The dots of light resolved into ants, large, glossy black and covered in droplets like dew, trailing up and down the trunk of a huge birch tree.

He sat up and listened. He was cradled between three large trunks like some tree's infant son. There was rustling from the leaves overhead and a chill breeze as clouds scudded across the sky ahead of a storm.

"DEREK!" Stiles yelled, looking around wildly.

He quickly realized he was naked as the day he was born.

"What's all that ruckus out there?" came a voice, not far away, followed by the click-click of a rifle being cocked.

Stiles pressed his back against the tree's broad trunk, shivering.

__________

Stay tuned for _Gravesburn_ , coming late in the summer!


End file.
